Lore Update:
Deep space mining has become a crucial part of humanity’s expansion across the stars, and Exotech is the undisputed leader in the field. The surveying expedition to Tantalus 13 is but one of hundreds in one of the most lucrative ventures in the galaxy.

With thousands of probes scattered across the galaxy searching for valuable new worlds to exploit, it’s perhaps inevitable that Exotech would be the ones to stumble across a find like Tantalus 13. For mining, Tantalus 13 is barely worth the effort, yet Exotech clearly believes otherwise. How much do they know about what lies beneath its surface? What is it they expected SCARAB might find there? For that matter...are they ready for it?
Find out now when you pre-order Tantalus Depths!

Trivia Update:

I have done more world-building for Tantalus Depths than will even come close to actually showing on its pages. This is partly because I do intend to expand upon the universe in the future, both in direct sequels and unrelated anthology stories, but if I’m honest with myself, it’s mostly because I don’t know when to quit.

While much of the world-building I’ve done is crucial for fleshing out characters and themes within the book, there are some things I’ve crammed into the story purely because I can.
Here’s a short list of Easter eggs, hidden references, and insignificant facts you can expect to find in Tantalus Depths.

Don’t worry, there are still plenty in there that I’m not telling you about.

What else can you expect to find in Tantalus Depths? The unexpected, mostly. I’ve filled every page with layers of meaning. It’s an adventure on many levels. If Tantalus Depths affects you the way I want it to, by the time you’ve read the last page your brain will have either exploded or twisted into a knot.

Be a part of this adventure. Pre-order Tantalus Depths today!

A new countdown has begun....

All things considered, I’m not really worried at all. This is about where we were at the 30-day mark before we lost the false pre-orders and got the extension, if I remember correctly. We’re more or less on schedule. That’s still a lot of orders to bring in, so definitely keep spreading the word!

After quite a long hiatus, I’ve resumed the Friday vlogging process! this time I talk in a little more detail about the hardships and obstacles the campaign has faced, and how I’ve worked through them. Hopefully my experience can help some of you as you deal with your own unforeseen setbacks!

Lore Update:

While most of the Colonial Hegemony’s more successful colonization efforts have taken place in humanity’s native solar system, such as on Mars, Luna, and Europa, they have also had some significant success colonizing worlds many lightyears away. While these worlds do not appear directly within the pages of Tantalus Depths, they may hold pieces of a puzzle eons in the making...a mystery that lies deep within the depths of Tantalus 13...

Would you like to be immortalized in the Colonial Hegemony’s charters? At the end of Tantalus Depths’ campaign, whoever refers the most people who place pre-orders will have an exoplanet named after them. You can be a part of this cosmic mystery. Don’t miss out.

I debated with myself whether I should do an author spotlight this week or not, since I made that my focus last week, and I don’t want to overwhelm you with information about projects that you’re not directly following. However, I do have one particular project I really want to support.

I’ve already made this book the subject of a previous author spotlight, but it’s worthy of a second one. 

You may ask yourself "Evan, why are you, an unmarried, childless man, so invested in a memoir about a woman raising her toddler?" Well, you’d be right to assume that it isn’t my genre of choice. Other than being a gamer as well, I have little to tie myself to the subject matter of Mothering: The Game. However, interestingly, there are quite a few parallels between that book and Tantalus Depths.

Tantalus Depths saw its origins in Geek and Sundry’s Hard Science Fiction competition. It placed in the top ten, but failed to win, and ever since then I’ve been working overtime to see it hit the full funding goal the hard way. One by one I’ve seen every other entrant in that contest either give up or fall short, their campaigns dropping left and right until the only ones left standing are the winners of that contest, and me.

Mothering: The Game saw its origins in Nerdist’s Video Games competition. Regina also managed to claw her way into the top ten, but not quite to the top. Since then, she’s been working hard to try and scrape together the support she needs to make it to the Quill goal the hard way. One by one, the other entrants in her contest gave up or failed, until the only ones left standing are the winners, Alisa King’s "Are You Sure You Want To Quit" (which managed to make it to Quill and deserves your support as well), and Mothering: The Game. Only a few scattered stragglers remain, none of them with more than a couple dozen pre-orders.

I’ve seen a determination and tenacity in Regina’s campaign. She wants to finish it, she wants to hit that goal, and she’s been willing to work hard for it. She’s successfully earned the Break The Bechdel syndicate’s pick, a syndicate that focuses on books with strong female protagonists. Well...the protagonist of Mothering: The Game is Regina. The real Regina. She’s a strong female protagonist in the flesh, and she’s earned all the success she’s seen and much, much more she’s yet to see.

Her writing is personal and meaningful. The relationship between her and her daughter radiates off the page and warms the heart. I’ve backed this book, and I’ve been kicking her butt to keep trying for that goal ever since I first found Mothering: The Game. True, it’s not my genre. That doesn’t stop me from loving this book, though. And even if it did, it could not stop me from seeing the reality that Mothering: The Game is a book that must exist. There is nothing like it on Inkshares, and there are few books like it in existence. Please, please consider playing a part in bringing this book to its goal.

Mothering: The Game has only 14 days remaining in its campaign, and has already been extended once. It needs 47 more orders to reach Quill publication. If I had the cash and Inkshares allowed it, I’d buy all 47 myself.

Tantalus Depths has come a long way since this campaign first began. It’s also fallen pretty far here and there, but it’s also come a long way since then.

The support I’ve seen from all of you has been beyond critical to the success this campaign has seen, but we still have a long way to go. As of today, we need 185 more pre-orders to hit full publication, and we have only about a month to get there.

I’ve reached out to just about as many people as I can at this point. I’m dependent on you to help bring in new readers; people you know who would like Tantalus Depths who I haven’t had the pleasure of asking about it myself.

To that end, I’m launching a special promotion from now until the end of my campaign: at the end of my campaign, whoever has referred the most people to buy copies of Tantalus Depths will have a minor planet named after them in the book.

It won’t be seen, since the entire story takes place on Tantalus 13, and will likely be only a passing reference. However, your planet will become a fixture in Tantalus Depths’ universe; a member world of the Colonial Hegemony, alongside other exotic and mysterious exoplanets such as Showalter, Samrat, Hayden, and Atropos. Your planet will be a part of the canon of this universe, and who knows? We may one day see more of it in future sequels or spinoffs.

To qualify for this honor, you simply have to be responsible for bringing the largest number of new readers to Tantalus Depths. Your own first order counts as one. If you get a friend to order a copy, that counts as two. A new friend counts as three. It’s that simple.

If at the end of the campaign there is a tie, the winner will be selected at random from among the top referrers. To prevent abuse of Inkshares’ referral systems, please confirm any new referrals with me via private message.

Have fun, and get to referring! (especially if you have a cool planet-sounding name.)

For today’s update, I’m featuring a story by an author that’s a bit more established than the others I’ve been promoting this week. Rick Heinz has already successfully funded a book through Inkshares: The Seventh Age: Dawn, and is a contributing member to the Too Many Controllers anthology collection. While my main purpose in sharing these updates is to draw attention to books that need an extra boost to reach an audience, I had to make an exception for this one.

The Seventh Age: Dystopia is the follow up to The Seventh Age: Dawn. It’s a high-powered urban fantasy story centered on the sudden jarring return of ancient magic to the modern world. 

In Dawn, the world was re-introduced to magic. Supernatural creatures and forces poured back into the world, thanks to meddling shadow organizations and secret societies. Now, one year later, Dystopia brings us a world where magic is not merely present, but industrialized. 

Greedy corporations, determined to turn a profit on a world-shattering phenomenon, have built a whole new industry on the research, development, and distribution of magically-infused products. Everything from experimental ability enhancing magical pharmaceuticals to Pegasus meat has flooded the market in a new and strange industrial boom.

But is there more to this new magic-centered economy than meets the eye? Just how much power do these secret societies hold? What greater ramifications will this new world show in time? I’m as excited to find out as anyone else. Please give Seventh Age: Dystopia a look!

My third recommendation for the week draws once more from the wellspring that is Geek and Sundry’s fantasy competition. 

"Fantasy" being as broad a genre as it is, this contest has brought in more prospective authors than any other Inkshares contest to date, and, predictably, many of the entrants are lackluster. Fantasy is one of those genres where many people are prone to the pitfall of thinking their stories are more original or interesting than they really are, resulting in a wash of samey, uninspired Tolkein/Lewis/Martin clones. In spite of this, however, there are some stories that manage to truly stand out in the crowd for their brilliant premises, artful world-building, and complex characterization. The Living God is a paragon example of these crucial features.

Kaytalin Platt has crafted a brilliantly multifaceted fantasy in The Living God. This is a story that effortlessly blends the best of high fantasy, urban fantasy, and dystopian science fiction into a seamlessly cohesive whole. Three worlds: one a medieval fantasy setting, one a modern Earth setting, and one an Orwellian future setting. Each world is locked away from the others, traverseable only by mages.

One mage, Saran, is tasked with two overwhelming responsibilities: to supplant her father, the mad king of the realm, and to prevent the love of her life from being consumed from within by a primordial abomination from the dawn of the universe. Also, her magic has been stripped from her.

So much speaks to me in this book, and I simply cannot wait to see more. Please give this story a look!

Guess what?
 

Yes, I am absolutely the kind of person who’d use his birthday to guilt people into ordering his book. At this point, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

If you’d like to send some birthday cheer my way, please consider pre-ordering Tantalus Depths, and get some friends and family to do the same!